


Names, Names, Names

by somerandomwritingstuff



Series: What's in a Name? [1]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Don't worry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinda, Mentions of Racism, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Zane-centric, a long time before canon in fact, also i realized i never mentioned zane's hair is significantly longer than in the show, but if i end up posting the sequels and/or prequels it might come up, cause he hides behind his hair a lot, caution the author is a rambler, dr. julien does not exist sorry, for some reason the tags won't keep my order, mentions of transphobia, nothing graphic, one-shot that turned into a series because one (1) person left a comment, she said and never mentioned it again, sorry - Freeform, zane is not a robot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 04:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19882030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somerandomwritingstuff/pseuds/somerandomwritingstuff
Summary: “Hey, what's your name?”If anyone had told him that would be his most loathed yet favourite question, well how would he have known?The first time he'd been asked, he couldn't even answer. He had yet to learn how to talk, had noone ever taught him. What normally is true for the littlest of children, he was far beyond that. He did not know, for he was long forgotten, but indeed he was but a mere fourteen. He never learned his birthday, nor received a name, but what he did get were friends. Friends who made sure it didn't matter, none of it mattered, lest he wanted it to.(prequel to What's in a Name?)





	Names, Names, Names

“Hey, what's your name?”  
If anyone had told him that would be his most loathed yet favourite question, well how would he have known?  
The first time he'd been asked, he couldn't even answer. He had yet to learn how to talk, had noone ever taught him. What normally is true for the littlest of children, he was far beyond that. He did not know, for he was long forgotten, but indeed he was but a mere fourteen. He never learned his birthday, nor received a name, but what he did get were friends. Friends who made sure it didn't matter, none of it mattered, lest he wanted it to.  
His first such friend was Dashie. Dashie who had, with Shaunee, always made sure he was comfortable and safe as could be. They went far beyond the necessary to do that.

He didn't want them to. He told them not to. He asked them not to, tried to make them promise. All for naught; they wanted to keep him safe. And safe he was indeed without the everlooming threat of _him_ finding him. What they had failed to see was that he wasn't all bad. He didn't just hurt him. He was sorry for it. Yes, it happened rarely that he was lately, but he wasn't as terrible as they thought him to be. He simply wasn't of sound mind. He simply lost control. They only saw the bad, the ugly, they never saw the teary apologies in the beginning when it happened. The promises to never have it happen again. Who minded if it did?

But he was so afraid of him. Why was he so afraid of him, if he weren't, he'd still be alive. If he had just gotten himself together, they'd never have murdered him.  
He was afraid of him, indeed.  
He missed him.

  
Dashie and Shaunee had found him.  
If he told anyone he met his now best friends because said friends kidnapped him, well people usually seem surprised to say the least. But they saw that tiny, dirtied, hurt, bleeding child. And who could have not helped him, even if it meant taking him with them against his will.  
He was so scared.  
The moment they saw him try to hide from them, confused and frightened and unable to tell them anything, they swore they'd protect this child.  
So naturally, they injected him with a sedative and kidnapped him on the spot.  
He had yet to ask why they had a syringe with a sedative ready on them.

  
It took him quite a while to get the hang of speaking. In fact, he rather learned sign language to communicate, even if it did hurt his sore and broken body to move. He rather not make many sounds.

He still up to this day crept around wherever he went, but at least his friends got used to it.

Another thing they got used to was going through all kinds of name lists to get a name to call him by. He didn’t have one and it wasn’t like they could ask his parents for his name. They had made quite sure of that.

So in the end, they went through all kinds of names. Each morning, they would get a list of names and randomly pick one they didn’t try before and then call him by that name for the rest of the day to see how it fit, how he responded to it, and how they got through them, what nicknames they would lead to.  
And when one day, Dashie accidentally pulled up a girl names list and picked out Aurora, he didn’t mind being called Aurora or Rara all day.  
And when they occasionally would just go through all kinds of names, he didn’t mind Jessica any different than Maximilian.  
So they went through both.  
But somehow, through all the name changing, Dashie would keep calling him Rara.  
And when he one day asked to be called Aurora again, they were all happy to have found a name for him.  
And when someone asked him yet again “What’s your name?”, he would ever more proudly answer “Aurora” with every time he was being asked.  
So when they stopped asking him for a name or whether he wanted to change it, he didn’t mind, as he was happy with his name.

And of course, having an actual name, an identity, didn’t mean Rara didn’t still have nightmares from his childhood, or feared people getting too close physically aside from his friends, who had went through drastic measures to assure him they only wanted to protect them. (He hadn’t asked them to burn the people that hurt him to the ground.) (There were reasons they were good at hiding.)

  
But of course, Rara couldn't keep anything positive in his life.  
Rara hated forms. He hated them.  
All he tried to do was to get a place to live. Which was hard enough without any last address. But then the lady at the desk asked him for his name and when he only said "Aurora", she wasn't pleased.  
She also couldn't help him when he realized that he didn't have any name to begin with, nor a birthday or age, let alone an official ID.  
The lady didn't have to become ugly and insult him with slurs for trans people and illegal immigrants, and she certainly didn't have to keep him from getting any help in changing his home address or getting an ID.  
~~Her shouts reminded him of -~~

"We already had that one, don't you have another?" he snapped at Dashie, who had just greeted him.  
Dashie and Shaunee shared a concerned look with raised eyebrows.  
"Are you alright? What did they say about you trying to find an own flat?" Shaunee asked slowly.  
"No! First things first! Today's name!"  
"Okay, wait a sec," Dashie looked up a name list on his phone. "Uhh, Julian?" he then suggested.  
"No."  
"Jennifer?"  
"No."  
"Alex?"  
"No! We already had that one."  
"Abraxax?"  
"Do I look like a raven to you?!"  
Shaunee cut in "How about we just call you "you" today? Would you like that?" She had to refrain herself from adding Rara at the end of her sentence.  
He nodded. Then, he went to Dashie and pressed himself against him asking for a strong bone-crushing hug, hiding his face in Dashies stomach.  
Dashie and Shaunee were at a loss what to do, but if there was one thing Dashie could do to comfort his best friend, it was hugging him tightly.

**Author's Note:**

> poor rara
> 
> so i didn't know i had more of that specific universe in my head  
> until someone said so  
> and apparently i can just sit down and write when given a universe to write in without having to think about it?  
> apparently that's a thing  
> nice  
> so thank you, dear guest, for making me write more :D
> 
> did i steal the tags of WiaN? yes, yes i did


End file.
